dream birds

BIRDS APPEARING IN A DREAM

One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi,

another a tail of color-coded wires.

One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings,

another a flicker with a wounded head.


All flew like leaves fluttering to escape,

bright, circulating in burning air,

and all returned when the air cleared.

One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower,


deep in the ground, miles from water.

Everything is real and everything isn’t.

Some had names and some didn’t.

Named and nameless shapes of birds,


at night my hand can touch your feathers

and then I wipe the vernix from your wings,

you who have made bright things from shadows,

you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.


Michael Collier

"Birds Appearing in a Dream", from Dark Wild Realm: Poems by Michael Collier. Copyright © 2006 by Michael Collier. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 1

(this image on the right is from this blog, which frequently displays wonderful portuguese and/or spanish japonisme images from magazines and books. additionally, he has documented with word and image the "portuguese lafcadio hearn.")

thus reads a short section of a collection of stories by laura bancroft called 'twinkle and chubbins.'

it was illustrated by maginel wright barney, someone who clearly had a knowledge of what was going on in japanese prints.

and well she should. her brother had quite a collection. his name was frank lloyd.



author of the book laura bancroft had
quite a well-known brother as well, l frank baum. well, laura bancroft had a brother but the author of the book did not, because the author of the book was l frank baum himself, using his sister's name.

(interestingly, jays and crows are related as well.)














just as i had dis- cov- ered this little gem (which all of the rest of you probably knew already), pk ran a wonderful oz entry by l frank, with illustrations by ww denslow (seen here as well). so benefit by the wonderful links he, as is his wont, delivers to us.

and let me point you to the complete 'twinkle and chubbins.'